Stats

Monday, June 19, 2006

This spring, at a ceremony to celebrate the new Iraqi air base next to Baghdad's airport, U.S. Brig. Gen. David W. Eidsaune told the audience, "We will work together to restore Iraq's air force to what it once was."

During an interview, however, Eidsaune, the senior air liaison for U.S.-led forces, said that "as much as [the Iraqis] would like to get back to it, they can't afford it right now." Though the government has begun to realize that the air force is a good "enabler," he said, it still faces challenges in terms of funding, recruitment and equipment.

So far, the fleet — described by one Iraqi pilot as "not secondhand but tenth-hand" — includes three C-130 cargo planes, bought through the U.S. Foreign Military Sales program; a few Soviet-era transport helicopters; and three small planes. Some aircraft were donated by Jordan, others purchased under the Coalition Provisional Authority immediately after the U.S.-led invasion, with little paperwork left to account for it, Eidsaune said.

The other problem, of course, is loyalty because there is great concern of when and how these air assets could be used if they were allowed to get up to speed. One can question which is the greater concern, money or loyalty, that is keeping them relatively grounded, but, either way, they stay limited.